


Knowledge is Power

by IFallLikeLeavesAndSnow



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Always More Questions, Arson, Gen, Magic, Mystery Twins, Post-Canon, Rituals, Secret Society, Secrets, Summoning, The Wheel, Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6174677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IFallLikeLeavesAndSnow/pseuds/IFallLikeLeavesAndSnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowledge itself is power, and power can be dangerous. Fortunately, there are those who know the importance of secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowledge is Power

The smell of gasoline is at once familiar and foreign. Familiar because he's been taught how to use it properly, foreign because it's been quite some time since he needed to start a fire with anything as mundane as a liquid combustible. Normally the flames come as he bids them. He hasn't needed words to conjure something as easy as fire for a few years now. Still, this area is near the middle of a city, and people get pretty curious when there are signs that the fire started without anything to actually _start_ it. The match is a finicky thing, his fingers slipping as he strikes it against his jeans and tosses it forward. The flames come into the world writhing and hungry, searching for something to devour. With an idle thought, he makes them bend around him. He's relatively certain that normal flames with a temperature like this aren't even capable of scalding him any more, but his clothes are significantly less resistant.

He looks around at the room that he's in. Normally he'd have taken a much closer look at the area before moving in, but there simply wasn't time. The body in the corner that used to be a man is wreathed in flames, though they don't seem to be doing a terribly good job of burning him. That might have something to do with the reason that he wasn't able to scope out the area. The man had been about two sentences away from causing a tear in the skin of this World. From the taste of the air in the room before he'd started to liberally toss gasoline about, he figured that it had been to a world filled very big, very mean, aquatic creatures. Nothing too threatening in the grand scheme of things, but significantly annoying and probably a major pain to clean up. The man had decided to go with a ritual that couldn't be stopped in the middle lest he perish from backlash; at least, that was what he'd gathered from the structure of the spell and the images on the walls. Poor guy, he probably didn't know any better. Another wannabe cultist trying to contact something who just so happened to say the right thing at the right time with the right objects. None of them ever knew what to do when they actually _got_ something to pick up.

The walls are covered in pictures and papers of various things. Some of them look to be actual research into how to open a portal, and how to keep it from closing. Others are pictograms and images of ritual circles. Most of them however, are messy, scratchy pictures, the artistic showcase of a mind driven mad by powers it was totally unprepared for. That too was another reason he'd had to die. Once something had it's hooks in you, even if just mentally, it made you a Snare. Something that could tangle up the fabric of reality, mangle it and draw it tight until miniscule tears began to appear around them. Granted, in some places it was a lot harder to do, like Gravity Falls, were reality was less a solid and more a liquid. In the normal world though, it was simply too dangerous to let him live, not to mention cruel to force him to continue to exist like that. Maybe someday they could be saved. Progress was being made, bit by bit, but there simply aren't enough people qualified to deal with the Maddened in the way they require. 

The fire licks up the walls, burning modern and ancient paper's to ash. Books on tables fall prey to the flames as well. The tomes are no doubt priceless and impossible to recreate for anyone else on the planet. Luckily he doesn't have to worry about that. The body in the corner still isn't burning, and he figures it's because the mans skin is no longer made of cartilage but scales. Maddened, Snared, _and_ Adapted, the guy really hadn't had a chance. He gives the body a sad look before flicking his fingers. Immediately the flames trying to burn the body roar higher, turning a vibrant red. The fire takes on the vague outline of a maw, rising up before crashing down and literally devouring the corpse. The beast in the flames spreads out as the box in his pocket informs him that police are on their way along with the fire department. Soon the entire building is on fire and the structure begins to groan ominously.

He wishes it didn't have to be fire, but the rules are clear. In cases of obvious elemental alignments for the summoned, the cleansing element is the inverse for best effect. Besides that, fire is a natural and easy method to use. Places catch fire all the time, though for admittedly far more mundane reasons. Besides that, fire has a history when it comes to the supernatural in the western world. Fire cleanses and purifies and all that. More than that, fire can heal, and of course, fire _burns_. The energy build up that would have tainted the building and the surrounding area will be burnt away by the time that the flames are sated.

The smoke, which has been trying futilely to get into his eyes, has grown thick enough that even though he can see just fine through his goggles, he knows the building will be coming down soon. He makes his way down the stairs, almost falling when one falls out from beneath him. The back door is an old thing and refuses to budge, so he smashes it to pieces. The air outside is cool and refreshing in comparison to the bit that he'd been recycling since he started the fire, even if it does smell of dumpsters and fish. The building is alight for all to see, and in its glory it casts deep shadows down the roads leading away from the alley.

The sound of sirens reaches his ears, and the little box in his pocket shines and shimmers in its familiar pattern, telling him, in no uncertain terms, that the mission is fulfilled and he is to report back at once. He contemplates hanging around briefly, and trying that late night jazz bar around the corner, but resigns himself to checking it out another night. HQ has been antsy after his last delay in reporting back ended with him doing battle with a monster made out of soda cans. The sirens are around the block now, and he knows he has to leave. He gives the building a once over, wills the fire to burn a little brighter, and then with a swish of his coat and a step into the shadows, Dipper Pines is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there and welcome to the end of my first Gravity Falls fic. I really love the show, and I have a ton of ideas for it, but I'm bad enough with the one big fic that I have going so I'm just going to leave it like this and do one-shots when the urge strikes me, at least for now. 
> 
> This little fic just kind of came to me. I couldn't help thinking of what happened after that wonderful summer, and since I loath endings, I made this. In it Dipper, Mabel, Stan, Ford, Wendy and the rest of the gang went on to create an organization known as "The Wheel" named after the Cypher Wheel. They go gallivanting off around the world and to others and really anywhere they need to, dealing with super science and the occult and magic and preventing any more extradimensional incursions. This takes place maybe six or seven years after the series finale. I have so many ideas for this, and I might come back to it some day, so I hope you enjoyed it and want more. 
> 
> Now then, any questions?


End file.
